Ryan Martin’s Indiana Ag Forecast for January 8, 2019

Scattered showers move over the state today. Winds will switch from the south west to the west and eventually northwest today, beginning to usher in some cooler air. However, we still will not be looking for a significant push below normal, it will just feel colder after yesterday’s exceptionally mild run. Moisture today will add up to another .25” or less, with coverage at about 50% of the state. Even though we are cooler today, we still expect all rain, where it falls.

Drier weather moves in behind the front for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We will see clouds slowly break up tomorrow, and clouds increase again on Friday afternoon. Temps make another leg down and we will spend most of the next three days near normal (after today), but there is no significant cold air blast coming.

The weather situation gets interesting Friday night through Saturday. Models are in significant disagreement on what comes through. The GFS model thinks we could see 1-8 inches of snow over the state, with the worst in southern Indiana. The European model looks for very light moisture and keeps the biggest precipitation off to our south and to our west. We are adding some minor moisture into our forecast, as the Saturday period has always been the most suspect. Honestly, we should not have removed it from our forecast 24 hours ago. This system will be very track dependent, but we think that available liquid equivalent moisture will be limited to a few hundredth to a tenth or so. At this time, we are putting a coating to an inch of snow in the forecast over 70% of the state for this coming Saturday. We do not buy into the large snowstorm fearmongering at this point. Stay tuned, as this may end up being the main feature for the week, depending on track of any storm. The map at right shows one model’s early depiction of snow potential this weekend through Midnight Saturday night. Again…this is just early model thoughts, not our official forecast – that will come later this week.

Dry weather is back for Sunday and it holds through at least next Wednesday. High pressure dominates the early part of the week on Monday. This will come with some colder air too. However, models also are in major disagreement toward the end of the 10 day period. The euro stays dry for next Thursday, while the American model, brings snow, and some good accumulations again. The precipitation potential likely lies in how much cold air lingers over the region at the end of the 10 day window. Right now, we are leaning toward better precipitation potential for next Thursday.

To kick off the extended 11-16 day forecast period, we have rain for the 19th and 20th, ending as snow on the 21st, with potentially significant accumulations. From there we remain cold with snow and flurries for the 22nd and 23rd.